Embodiments of the invention relate generally to X-ray medical imaging, and more particularly to systems and methods to perform standard digital mammography (DM), 2D/3D spectral mammography (SM) or digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) guided biopsy exams, as well as in examinations of other types of tissues that can be imaged in these and other manners.
Spectral mammography (SM) is an x-ray two-dimensional (2D) imaging modality used to scan breasts for screening, diagnosis and/or interventional examination. The effectiveness of mammography is affected by numerous factors
Alternative systems to SM are also known for breast imaging. For example, a digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) or mammography-tomography (mammo-tomo) system is a dedicated mammography system that acquires several (e.g., tens of) projection images acquired at different locations and reconstructs three-dimensional (3D) image datasets.
In these procedures, a number of image acquisitions are performed, with each image taken at a different position of the X-ray source with respect to the detector. With regard to these procedures, current x-ray examinations for SM or DBT are populated with distinct datasets representing the images taken of the breast tissue from various angles in order to provide sufficient information about the tissue being imaged. These datasets include, for example, images taken of the cranio-caudal (CC) view and/or of the medial lateral oblique (MLO) view and/or of the medio-lateral (ML) or latero-medial (LM) views and views obtained by DBT, and combinations thereof, in a typical mammography examination.
Once these images are obtained, the images/datasets are then recombined to display material-specific information with regard to the internal structure of the tissue being imaged. Image recombination can be performed based on simulations of the X-ray image chain, which in one suitable exemplary manner is described in United States Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0167552, which is expressly incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, via calibrations on a reference phantom, or any other suitable 3D-reconstruction process, as is known.
Once the views or datasets taken in the procedure are recombined in the appropriate manner, an analysis of the recombined images is undertaken to locate any areas or regions of interest (ROI) in the recombined images.
With the images taken at the various angles to provide the standard views discussed above, it is often difficult to accurately correlate the data from the images in the different datasets with one another. Further, depending upon the results of this analysis, it is often necessary to re-acquire the images forming the individual datasets in order to refine the analysis of the ROI for diagnostic purposes. For, example, in French Patent No. 2,680,095, the analysis of the images in a first dataset is undertaken in order to adjust the set-up of the imaging device for taking a second set of images at a more optimal location for imaging the ROI. This re-acquisition is undesirable due to the length of time necessary for obtaining and analyzing the images, as well as the hazards associated with repeatedly dosing the tissue with radiation to produce the images for the datasets.
Accordingly, it is desirable to develop a medical imaging system and method to enhance the integration of datasets obtained from various images to focus on an ROI in the tissue being imaged. The medical imaging system should allow an existing image dataset to be updated or refined by combining the existing dataset with datasets from additional images as taken as determined from the analysis of the dataset(s) that have already been acquired and other contextual information, such as information related to the patient or the examination room, among others.